Hopper feed control device



Sept. 25, 1962 H. E; WHITTEMORE ET AL 3,055,433

HOPPER FEED CONTROL nEvIcE Filed Aug. 21, 1958 TON EES

mnm HO n A w D J mm mm HR! 6 United States Patent Office 7 3,055,483 Patented Sept. 25, 1962 3,055,483 HOPPER FEED CONTROL DEVICE Harold E. Whittemore, East Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, and Robert W. Morrison, Washington Boro, Pa., assignors to Armstrong Cork Company, Lancaster, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Filed Aug. 21, 1958, Ser. No. 756,386 3 Claims. (Cl. 198-56) This invention relates to a feeding device and more particularly to a device for feeding a quantity of color particles of varying size onto a moving carrier in a manner to insure a layer of a uniform dispersion of the varying sized particles on the carrier.

In the production of sheet floor and wall coverings such as linoleum and plastic material, it is common practice to place a mass of granular material on a backing or suitable carrier prior to consolidation. In order to produce certain desired design efiects, it has been found necessary to supply chips of color composition of appreciable size, along with smaller particles in order to produce a mottled design in which the design elements are not all the same size. When such mass of color particles is consolidated into the final product, the fine granules serve as the background color while the larger chips effectuate the desired design. It is diflicult to feed color compositions of this type inasmuch as there is a tendency for segregation to occur in the hopper between the small granules and the larger chip particles, and the resulting design does not have an even distribution of particles of varying size, but instead has zones in which there is a lack of the designforming chips while other zones have a preponderance of chips and no background color composition. Several devices have been utilized to avoid this defect. These devices include hopper vibrators, agitation in the hopper, etc, but these all had a tendency toward further segregation rather than limiting segregation.

In order toovercome the disadvantages above recited, the invention here under consideration has been developed in which the color particles are mixed uniformly and are fed into a hopper uniformly across the entire width of the hopper from a plurality of individual feeding means, each supplied with a uniform mixture of color particles, with small granules and the larger chip particles, after which they are leveled off in order to prevent the building of mounds under the individual feeders, which would result in segregation of the larger color particles from the smaller granules.

An object of this invention is to provide a feeding device for color particles of various sizes in which the color particles are maintained at a relatively constant level in a feed hopper to prevent segregation.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood, it will be described in connection with the attached drawing in which FIGURE 1 is a schematic view of the device;

FIGURE 2 is a top plan view of the device; and

FIGURE 3 is a cross sectional view of the device shown in FIGURE 1.

Referring to FIGURE 1, there is shown a conventional backing 2 for sheet floor and wall coverings. This backing may be felt or burlap and is supplied to the device around the idler roll 3 and passes beneath a wide belt conveyor 4 which is slightly wider than the backing 2. Immediately above the conveyor 4 is a hopper 5 provided with converging sides 6 and 7, the bottom edges of which define a slot opening 8 (FIGURE 3) positioned directly above the conveyor 4 and extending substantially the entire width of the conveyor 4. The premixed granular and chip material is supplied to the hopper 5 through the tubes 9 which terminate at their lower extremity in a header 10 extending along the top of the hopper parallel to said slot opening but being slightly offset therefrom so that the material strikes the sloping side 6 of the hopper 5. The header 10 is secured to and carried by a movable slide 11 which is capable of oscillatory motion along the top of the hopper 5 on the rollers 12.

When the previously mixed granular and chip material is fed through the tubes 9 in such manner as to evenly distribute the material from one end of the hopper 5 to the other, care must be exercised to prevent the building of mounds of the material beneath the individual tubes. When such mounds occur, the larger flat chips slide down the outside of the mounds, causing segregation of the chips and the relatively fine granules of color composition in the hopper. If the larger fiat chips are permitted to accumulate in the low areas between adjacent mounds, the resulting pro-ducts will have lines of the larger chips between lines of the fine granules. This is objectionable when it is desired to produce a sheet material having a uniform overall design effect. In order to overcome this, the header carrying the feeder tubes is oscillated periodically in a direction parallel to the longitudinal slot opening so as to prevent the formation of mounds, and on the contrary, evenly distribute the material in a manner to maintain the uniform dispersion of larger chips and smaller granules established by the premixing prior to feeding down the feeder tubes 9. When the hopper is filled to the header 10 and additional granulated material is fed down the tubes, it builds up in the header 10 and is confined therein, preventing segregation. Periodic oscillatory motion to the header 10 by means of the plate 11 moving on the rollers 12 in a line parallel to the slot 8 causes the header 10 to level the top of the reservoir of material in the hopper 5 and prevents segregation due to the fact that this oscillating movement distributes the newly supplied granular material evenly over the top of the reservoir and prevents the formation of mounds under the individual tubes 9.

The oscillatory motion is imparted to the slide 11 by means of the motor 13 and the crank arm .14 which is pivotally attached to the slide 11 at point 15. Rotation of the crank arm 14 causes the slide to move in a direction parallel to the longitudinal center-line of the slot at the bottom of the hopper.

As the conveyor 4 moves about the driven rolls 16 and 18, it picks up the material which falls through the slot Sin the hopper. The front wall 7 of the hopper 5 is positioned above the conveyor 4 a suflicient distance to permit a layer of color particles of the required thickness to produce a final sheet of the desired gauge to pass along with the conveyor. These granules are lightly compacted on the conveyor by means of the metering roll 18 positioned immediately in front of the hopper. This layer of material which has an even distribution of fine granules and coarse chips then passes along the conveyor 4 and is deposited from the conveyor 4 onto the backing 2 as the backing moves through under the conveyor. Final consolidation of the color particles on the backing may be accomplished by any of the conventional equipment commonly used for that purpose, such as a calender or a flat bed press.

In a typical example of operating this device, color granules ranging in size from one-sixteenth of an inch to one-eighth of an inch diameter and color chips approximately .015" thick and having a flat surface dimension ranging from one-eighth of an inch to five-eighths of an inch are premixed in the desired proportions and fed through the tubes 9 into the hopper 5. As the hopper 5 fills, the header 10 is moved horizontally across the top of the hopper periodically a distance at least twice the magnitude of the distance between the centers of the individual feeder tubes 9. This movement of the header 10 carries with it the color particles disposed therein and levels the material in the hopper, insuring uniform distribution of various size color particles in the hopper. Inasmuch as this segregation in the hopper is eliminated, the material fed from the bottom of the hopper is uniformly mixed and a uniform layer of color granules results.

In the preferred embodiment here under consideration, the feeder tubes 9 are located on four-inch centers and the slide 11 on which the tubes are mounted traverses a distance of eight inches so as to insure a movement of the header to distribute the color particles over the entire area between tube centers.

It has been found that it is not necessary to operate the slide constantly, but the desired etfect can be obtained by intermittent movement effected by a conventional timing device on the switch which controls the energizing current to the motor 13. The timing device is adjustable, and its setting is determined by the range of particle sizes being fed. For example, the smaller the range between the small dimension of the granules and the large dimension of chips, the greater the interval between oscillations of the slide 11 and the larger the range between the small dimension of the granules and the large dimension of the chips, the smaller the interval between the oscillations. The above is based on an equal proportion of chips and granules, however, if the ratio is changed so there is a preponderance of chips, it may be necessary to decrease the interval for a given range of granule and chip size, and also if there is a preponderance of the granules, it may be possible to decrease the number of oscillations for a given range of granule and chip size. The timing arrangement for a given mix can readily be determined by those skilled in the art in practicing this invention. In handling a mixture in which the smallest granules are of the order of one-sixteenth of an inch and the largest chips are five-eighths of an inch, and the granules and chips are disposed in a 50-50 ratio, satisfactory distribution in the hopper has been effected by oscillating the slide 16 times per minute.

It will be obvious from the above that we have developed a device which will distribute a uniform layer of color composition on a backing prior to consolidation into a composite sheet for floor and wall covering use.

We claim:

1. In a device for forming a layer of loose color particles in which color particles of varying sizes are uniformly dispersed upon a carn'er'to cover substantially the entire width of the carrier, the elements comprising a hopper for receiving a quantity of color particles of varying size, said hopper having converging walls on two sides thereof defining a slot opening for discharge of the color particles from the hopper onto said carrier, said slot being substantially as long as the width of the carrier on which the layer of color particles is discharged, a plurality of tubes for delivering color particles from a source of supply to said hopper, said tubes terminating in a leveling device positioned in the hopper, a horizontally movable plate on which said leveling device is mounted, and means for imparting horizontal oscillatory motion to said plate to move the leveling device in a direction parallel to the longitudinal slot opening.

2. In a device for forming a layer of loose color particles in which color particles of varying sizes are uniformly dispersed upon a carrier to cover substantially the entire Width of the carrier, the elements comprising a hopper for receiving a quantity of color particles of varying size, said hopper having converging walls on two sides thereof defining a slot opening for discharge of the color particles from the hopper onto said carrier, said slot being substantially as long as the width of the carrier on which the layer of color particles is discharged, a plurality of tubes for delivering the color particles from a source of supply to the hopper, said tubes being arranged in a line parallel to the longitudinal slot opening in the bottom of the hopper, leveling means positioned at the bottom of said tubes where the color particles enter the hopper, and means for imparting horizontal oscillatory motion to said tubes and said leveling device to move them in a direction parallel to the longitudinal slot opening.

3. In a device for forming a layer of loose color particles in which color particles of varying sizes are uniformly dispersed upon a carrier to cover substantially the entire width of the carrier, the elements comprising a hopper for receiving a plurality of color particles of varying size, said hopper having converging walls on two sides thereof defining a slot opening for discharge of the color particles from the hopper onto said carrier, said slot being substantially as long as the width of the carrier on which the layer of color particles is discharged, a plurality of tubes for delivering color particles from a source of supply to said hopper, said tubes terminating in a leveling device positioned in the hopper, a horizontally movable plate on which said leveling device is mounted, means for imparting horizontal oscillatory motion to said plate to move the leveling device in a direction parallel to the longitudinal slot opening a distance equal to at least twice the spacing of the tube centers.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 269,850 Hadden Jan. 2, 1883 486,851 Campbell Nov. 29, 1892 587,509 Roberts Aug. 3, 1897 1,104,491 Greenwalt July 21, 1914 1,452,978 Miller Apr. 24, 1923 2,233,678 Rossi Mar. 4, 1941 2,603,342 Martinson July 15, 1952 2,690,827 Wiggins Oct. 5, 1954 

